


A Handful of Pebbles

by buttercup23



Series: The Harder They Fall [2]
Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Heartbreak, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 01:39:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5478563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttercup23/pseuds/buttercup23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A drabble accompanying Poison and Wine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Handful of Pebbles

**Author's Note:**

> This scene occurs somewhere between chapters 51 and 56.

Alistair tries not to listen when Elissa talks in her sleep. **  
**

It’s a silly and romantic notion anyway, the idea that a person would divulge the secrets of their heart unknowingly while their mind walked the Fade. His sleeping arrangements have always been both less than ideal and fairly crowded, so he knows full well that when people talk in their sleep, their words are more often an indecipherable word salad, rather than any solution to some great personal mystery. Like gossamer strands that flit away with the slightest touch, the content of their musings is often so inconsequential and nonsensical that regardless of his promise to remember, in the morning they are gone, swept away with the rest of the Fade’s illusions.

Likewise, he knows the attempt to scrutinize is an unwelcome one.  _You are not entitled to my every thought and notion_ , she has told their companions on numerous occasions… not always with those words, but still, the message is clear. Stay out. Keep away. When a subject hits too close to home, something hardens in her gaze. Keep out, say the signs in her eyes, and Alistair knows how to read them.

Except…

Except it’s different when it’s a name, isn’t it? People dream about all sorts of silly things, but in his experience… they  _do_ dream about people they care about. At least, he does, sometimes, and he’s a person, isn’t he?

He doesn’t recognize some of the names, and that unfamiliarity feels like a slap in the face every time.  _You think you know her. You don’t even know who she’s talking about._  Oriana. Owen. Nan.

And then there are the ones he does know.

_Mother. Father. Fergus… Rory._

Still, it’s none of his business, and no matter where the two of them are in their little dance around each other, it remains that way.

Once when he’s lying beside her, nostrils filled with her unique aroma (Elissa always smells oddly like something fresh cut and verdant–like some leafy foliage with medicinal purposes that he’s never heard of, but that she uses in any number of alchemical experiments) he hears a new one.

 _Alistair_.

It’s stupid (and he knows it that is stupid) to look for any kind of significance in those three little syllables, but her worried gasp of his name fills his chest with sudden warmth and makes his pulse throb in his throat. It feels good in a way he’s never ever known before, and he can’t even put it into words himself so he just holds her closer and kisses her awake.

But… that was then. Now…

She’s in her tent and he’s in his, and the only time he hears her is if he’s on watch and she’s gripped by a particularly nasty one. He always gets up and throws a handful of stones against the side of her tent–softly, of course. Just enough to wake her without him having to reveal that he might’ve heard anything.

Which is how he winds up standing outside of her tent tonight, stones frozen in his hand, listening.

 _Alistair_.

He shakes his head to clear it.  _It’s nothing._  They’re both Wardens… he knows what the dreams are like. And anyway, they’re still friends, aren’t they?  _Are we?_ He hasn’t exactly been friendly lately. But everyone knows that he’s going to eventually get over it, (because it isn’t like he’s in the position to be choosy with his friends now, is he? Nor has he ever been. Of course he’ll cave.  _Of course._ ) so it isn’t totally bizarre for her to feel concern for him in a darkspawn-inspired nightmare, for Andraste’s sake. She’s not as heartless as he pretends, though admitting that makes him decently uncomfortable. He goes to throw the stones.

_Please. Alistair. Don’t. No!_

He looks around helplessly, but of course Wynne’s not anywhere he can see her. She’s probably off making water again, he guesses, having somewhat uncharitable notions about the elderly mage’s bladder right then.

Elissa’s only making whimpering noises now, and dammit he should have thrown the bloody stones already, instead of standing here gaping like the fool Morrigan (and possibly Elissa, he admits to himself ruefully) thinks he is.

Or better yet, he should gently push aside the tent flaps and crawl into the tent with her, as was his all-too-brief habit when they traveled to Soldier’s Peak. He could take her in his arms and hold her until she woke, and then ask her all those questions he should have asked her ages before. “Who is Owen? Oriana?” A good place to start, he thinks.

But he doesn’t do that either. He’s too busy trying to answer a question.

_Don’t what?_

What could he possibly do? What in the Void could Elissa fear from him?

She falls quiet and he lets the stones fall out of his hand before walking back to the campfire.

It’s like he said. It’s a silly and romantic notion anyway, the idea that a person would divulge the secrets of their heart unknowingly while their mind walked the Fade.

 _Or that I’d be smart enough to interpret them if she did,_ he thinks, feeling once again out of his depth and in over his head.

_Just like always._


End file.
